July 5, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Marisa Lobo, a
Brazilian psychologist who identifies publicly as a Christian, answers
questions from pro-family activist Julio Severo about her struggle against
Brazil’s leftist Federal Council of Psychology (CFP), which has forbidden her
to publicly associate her Christianity with her identity as a psychologist, a
ruling that has recently been condemned by the Religious Right and Liberty
Committee of the Order of Attorneys of Brazil as unconstitutional.

Marisa Lobo

Lobo says that
she was threatened with the loss of her license by the CFP in response to
complaints from homosexual activists over her blog and Twitter posts condemning
the “gay kit” that the Brazilian government tried to distribute to public
school students in 2011, with the stated purpose of fighting “homophobia.” The
kit’s explicit contents and positive portrayal of homosexual behavior provoked
outrage among Brazilians and the program was suspended by Brazilian President
Dilma Rousseff as a result.

Some of the
questions of the original interview were eliminated for the sake of brevity,
and paragraph breaks have been added for the sake of readability.

Julio Severo:Why is the Federal Council of Psychology
threatening you?

Marisa Lobo: For
revealing myself on the Internet as a Christian psychologist, for defending my
faith and principally for questioning the gay kit, which for me is not a form of
preventing prejudice, and is an incentive for homosexual practices. The gay kit
is very explicit, and from what I understand about public policy, its
applicability is not justified in such a personal way. The gay kit is a way of
giving privileges and creating an even greater form of prejudice.

With children
things should happen at the appropriate time, in a natural and general way. We
should have kits that speak of prejudice as a whole, about bullying suffered by
overweight people, nerds, short people, Evangelicals, homosexuals, ugly people,
blacks, blind people, etc. In sum: if we give a privileged attention only to
one category, we are discriminating against the others. That doesn’t eliminate
prejudice; it is just a Machiavellian tactic for privileging and instituting a
dictatorship and a superior group, and I am principally in favor of equality.

Julio Severo:If someone involved in homosexuality asks
you for help to abandon the lifestyle, what do you do?

Marisa Lobo: I
treat them. My oath, my code of ethics, tells me that I have to treat, to
listen to psychic suffering, and if the fact of being homosexual is causing any
kind of suffering, I do treat them. It’s my obligation, even if it is to change
their orientation, condition, or choice, if that is their absolute desire. I
could not deny it to them. I would be violating the code of ethics, would I
not? But it’s evident that, as a psychologist, I must respect resolution
01/1999 (the CFP resolution which does not permit treatment of homosexuality as
an illness – ed.). The World Health Organization says that homosexuality is not
an illness, however at the same time I don’t understand why there is so much
pressure from gay militants who fear psychologists who do not refuse such help.
Gay militants distort what we do and continue to monitor us.

What happens in
the therapeutic setting should be determined by the patient. The neurosis is
such that psychologists are fearful and are induced to make clear to the
patient that it isn’t an illness, whether it is or not. But if he’s going to
therapy it’s because he’s suffering. And if, I repeat, it is his will, I have
to be a channel, without imposing, something I have never done. What they say
about me is a lie and another strategy for condemning people who are Christian.

Julio Severo:Are the threats of the CFP impeding you
from helping homosexuals?

Marisa Lobo:
The decision of the person should always be respected. We must always keep in
mind the demands of the patient. We should respect his will without pressure. A
reversion (of his condition) can happen in many cases. The terrorism of the CFP
does not permit homosexuals to believe this. The CFP thinks that when someone
says they want to change, it is because of an imposition of religion, and,
since they don’t believe in God—because God for many of them is a myth—they
always are going to treat this topic with religious prejudice. I now let my
patient decide. If it’s what he wants, we go there, and in the process, he will
determine and even confirm if that is what he wants.

Julio Severo:Why is the CFP, which doesn’t impede
Spiritist psychologists from applying Spiritist techniques in their treatment,
so involved in what you do as a Christian that they busy themselves with your
clients?

Marisa Lobo:
Why? Look, I don’t know. It’s impossible that they still don’t know that a
Brazilian Association of Spiritist Psychologists exists, or Buddhist
psychology, or Jewish, or esoteric, or parapsychoology, etc. There exists a
grand number [of such things]. You only need to go to Google to prove it. The
Federal Council of Psychology is the most persecutory, unethical autocracy in
history. They have no moral standing to persecute me. They are activists
for ideologies, policies, sexual orientation, atheism, and they vent their
hatred and prejudice against Christians, principally Evangelicals.

But the response
is clear: Christianity speaks openly about homosexuality. So they want to
destroy us for being Christians. They combat the Bible punishing those who
follow it, because of religious prejudice. It is necessary to put an end to the
activism of the CFP, which should be investigated by public prosecutors, since
it committs various crimes, it violates its policies, it’s hypocritical,
unethical. It clearly persecutes those who oppose it. That’s why I have been
persecuted. There is a war [against me] because today I question that Council
and its director.

Julio Severo:If the CFP revokes your license, what
will you do?

Marisa Lobo:
I am not going to abandon my profession over that, nor anything else that is
legal and moral. The CFP has no morals, because it has gagged us, and no
one dares to contest its decisions. We are obligated to accept them as the
truth, even if they are lies.

They are social
surfers, adopting themselves to the evolution of society, even if that
evolution is bad, because they have lost the sense of what is right and wrong
for the individual, of the family, of the necessity of rules, ethics, morality,
principles. They are just surfing. As a result, family crises and inhumanity
are on the increase, and now the legalization of abortion is coming, a
record-breaking number of divorces, condoms in the schools, the legalization of
drugs—and psychology adapts. Soon, we’re going to see sex on the beaches, and
the whole world applauding because psychology is going to determine that it is
a right to express one’s sexuality. That’s the direction humanity is going in.

Julio Severo:What caused the complaint against you in
the CFP?

Marisa Lobo:
The fact of my speaking of God in my social networks and of having asked the
deputies to pay attention to the content of the gay kit, which was an
aberration, with extremely inappropriate and sexualized content that in a sense
eliminates prejudice, but creates even more. They didn’t like it. When they
learned that it was a Christian talking, they began to persecute me, as a
psychologist who categorizes herself as a Christian, and later in the process
as a homophobe, because I said on Twitter that I love gays, but I prefer for my
child to be heterosexual. And I still don’t understand why having an opinion
instigates violence. Now I’m going to lose my right to say that I’m happy being
a heterosexual, and that I prefer my children to be heterosexual?

They want
society to think that I persecute gays, that I offer treatment for gays because
I’m a fundamentalist, prejudiced. They decided that, and that’s that. I
don’t accept it. The truth is that they are contradictory. They are trying to
use everything to qualify me as a “homophobe.” And in 15 years of work, never
did any patient complain that I imposed my religious convictions in my
practice. The case against me is religious persecution, religious prejudice.
The CFP thought that I would shut up, because many people deify
psychology. Well I, Marisa Lobo, only have one God, and I don’t serve the
insanity of these members of the Council. If they revoke my license, they are
going to dig their moral grave.

Julio Severo:True Christianity is “lose for the
purpose of winning.” Do you fear losing your psychology career because of
Christian testimony?

Marisa:
The only fear I have is that God might turn his face from me. God gave me the
opportunity to be persecuted for the love of him, and I accepted. God wants to
change something, and here I speak as a pastor. I am only an instrument. If my
license is removed, I am going to fight in all venues. My greatest fear is that
Jesus would deny me before the Father, and that will not happen, because I am
not denying him before men.